Minecraft Release, Skyrim, and Portal 2 Updates

As per IGN, the long awaited Xbox 360 port of Minecraft is now slated for a 2012 Spring release, as tweeted by @newbreedofnerd. Having the antiquated computer that I do, this is an exciting bit of news to me. My PC plays Minecraft, but it doesn't play Minecraft. Sometimes the tiny render distance just doesn't cut it. Now that there is an official release window, we should be able to expect more details about the features of the Xbox 360 port, such as importing maps from the computer versions, mod integration and PC server compatibility.

As for the mod integration, don't be so quick to disregard such a possibility. In an interview between Notch and Todd Howard of Bethesda, Todd hinted at modding being a very real possibility for the Xbox 360 with Skyrim and that Notch should also keep his options open for mod integration with the Xbox 360 port of Minecraft. Honestly, I had to go wipe twice after that interview (aired on Spike TV during the 2011 E3 conference) because not only were two of my favorite people in a room interviewing each other, but possible modding for Skyrim on a console? This November is looking all the more interesting.

It was recently announced that the upcoming DLC for Portal 2 would be an in-game program that allows users to create their own levels and puzzles. Personally, I think that this is the way that modding for console versions of Skyrim should be handled -- just an option, even a second disc, that allows players to create their own ESPs and ESMs to be loaded into the game just like any official Bethesda DLC. For those of you not familiar with Elder Scrolls modding lingo, ESPs and ESMs are the files that the game loads to load DLC (of cousrse in very simple terms). Something like this probably wouldn't be as effective for Minecraft, as you have to have a great deal of programming knowledge to make mods for it.

Communism in Minecraft

I'm not here to start any arguments, but on paper, communism is an astoundingly great idea. Unfortunately, every communist leader to date has been quite the failure and has not practiced communism well at all, which I believe is where this governmental form finds its fatal flaw -- execution. There is no way to execute communism well in real life because of the basic, unchangeable natures in all human beings. This draws a little far from the topic at hand, but I joined a server recently in Minecraft where they decided to use gold as a currency. One hundred gold bars could buy you any sized plot of land to found your own city, so I saved up and bought the equivilant of three chunks of land and walled it up, built severl community farms, roads, and divided it up into equal sized plots. Then, I made a server wide announcement stating that living in my town was 100% free and that you only had to obey the rules of the community, which I had set into motion. Needless to say, the offer appealed to more than a few people, and so they gave up everything to move into my town, which I named Ebonhart. One of the rules stated that since everything was provided, all money would given to me. Think of it as a tax of sorts. So here I am, with the largest town on the server with nine tenths of the people living in it. I am also the richest, so I use the money that I got to buy two nearby towns and I turned them into strip mines essentially and told the people they could keep whatever they found if they dug to bedrock in a 50x50 square in one of the towns. This hole has no purpose, but I only wanted to see if I could make it happen, and I did. I have a digital slave labor of fifteen Minecraft players all because I give free food and shelter. I feel like a pharaoh.